Upon encountering an unfamiliar word, many people look it up in a dictionary. The assumption is that words possess well-defined meanings and dictionaries outline their semantic boundaries.
However, a vast majority of words defy such a static view. In such cases, instead of asking what a word means, it is more useful to ask, “How does a word mean?” This helps understand the intricate sociocultural and political factors that contribute to shifting outlines of what words mean. It is also a reminder that the fight over language is seldom about language alone.
A semantic journey
Consider the word “Bihari”, the dictionary meaning of which is “someone or something originating in the state of Bihar”. But in many Indian metropolitan cities such as Delhi, the word has gone from being a neutral term related to a state to becoming a slur or an abuse.
Many years ago, while commuting in Delhi, we witnessed an argument in which one person called another “abe oye Bihari”, hey, you Bihari, to which the other person replied, “Bihari ho go tu” – it is you who is Bihari.
The meaning of Bihari in this exchange is not the original meaning, but rather a slur. How did the word Bihari, from being socially neutral, if not positive, acquire not only a negative meaning but become an insult? The answer lies in the socioeconomic factors that prompted a mass migration of Biharis starting from the 1960s.
Most Biharis who migrated to other Indian cities hailed from socially marginalised, economically deprived and largely unlettered groups and communities. Their presence in cities created competition and conflict of interests with host populations, leading to situations in which local residents sought to wield power and control over the Bihari migrants.
The linguistic manifestation of that control, mostly exploitative, and the migrant workers being cast as “others” led to the term Bihari being a stigma. As a consequence, many youngsters born in big cities often hide their Bihari origin to avoid prejudice and discrimination.
This is the outcome of what sociolinguists refer to as “semantic pejoration” where a neutral or positive word acquires a negative connotation. This phenomenon is a reflection of the history of the meanings of words as well as their speakers.
Caste and religion
The trajectory of the words “chamar” and “Miya”, by contrast, has been somewhat different. Both words originally had neutral meanings but later became slurs, only to be appropriated by the relevant speakers. “Chamar” is used pejoratively in North India to denote marginal caste status while in Assam, the term “Miya” a religious group, with the suggestion that they are from Bangladesh. But over the years, there have been attempts to give both these words a positive connotation.
As per the discriminatory hierarchy of the caste system, the chamar community was traditionally engaged in the occupation of disposing dead animals and working in tanneries. Mohandas Gandhi, in an attempt to address caste discrimination, coined the term “harijan”, or “god’s children”, to refer to members of the lower castes in general inlcuding the Chamars. But many criticised the term as being patronising. Several groups preferred the term “Dalit”, which means “crushed”.
In 2018, the Supreme Court held that calling someone “chamar” with an intention to insult could amount to an offence under the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe Prevention of Atrocities Act.
However, Chamar Studio, a company in Mumbai that makes leather accessories illustrates an attempt at reclaiming the word and investing it with a positive meaning. It was started by Sudheer Rajbhar, an entrepreneur from the Bhar caste, which is categorised as an Other Backward Class community.
The name of the rap band “Chamar Boyz” is another attempt to give the word an empowering connotation. These examples illustrate a push from within to shift away from socially-sanitised word “harijan” or the constitutionally-ordained “Scheduled Caste” by flaunting a derogatory term as an assertive badge of community pride.
The trajectory of the word “miya” has been similar. In Assam, as elsewhere in North India, the word has been used derogatorily to refer to Muslims of Bengali origin, who are subjected to discrimination and humiliation.
This prejudice was heightened amid the process to draft a National Register of Citizens in Assam aimed at rooting out “illegal migrants”. But it also gave rise to “miya poetry” as a form of resistance in Assam.
Assamese Muslims have now embraced the word miya, the very term used against them as an ethnic slur. In doing so, they are subverting its semantic content. By reclaiming the word, they are forging a new lexicon of resistance that speaks against the prevalent forms of majoritarianism.
These instances show that the meanings of words are not limited to the pages of dictionaries but are constantly being negotiated and challenged by their speakers in social and communicative spheres.
The evolution of these words encodes manifold struggles that extend beyond thesauruses and dictionaries showing an important, often ignored, fact about language that words are not simply means of expressing social realities but powerful tools to recreate and reimagine new ones. The positive use of “Chamar” and “Miya” highlight that the communities are no longer willing to accept their marginalisation and are attempting to create empowering narratives.
Rizwan Ahmad is Professor of Linguistics, Qatar University.
Manish Thakur is Professor of Public Policy, IIM Calcutta
Also read:
From history to lungis: How this Assam politician is battling for a distinct Miya Muslim identity
View from the Margins: A Miya poet on how Hindutva’s rise has scarred his community
